


Quiet Secrets in the Forest

by Diary



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bechdel Test Fail, Conversations, Dark Character, Dark Podrick Payne, Disturbing Themes, Gen, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6635917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Dark!Podrick Payne. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Secrets in the Forest

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Game of Thrones.

Of all the things Pod takes pride in, being able to fool the cynical genius Lord Tyrion Lannister is where he’s his proudest.

Pod started learning the secrets of plants before he could even walk.

He doesn’t remember his parents and prays he didn’t hurt them when he was a baby.

He does remember being only four or five, squeezing posionious berry juice in wine, and watching the man who continually beat him die.

 _His heart gave out_ , he’d heard.

When he got older, a bigger boy had tried to hurt him, and when the boy had gotten hurt during practise, Pod had cleaned his wounds and acted sad when the infection rapidly spread and took him.

A little older still, and he once found one of the women from Littlefinger’s brothel crying and shaking in a darkened corner of the castle. She couldn’t bear to have lower smallclothes on or even lower her dress and allow the fabric to touch her absolutely ruined bottom.

With her, he hadn’t even bothered to put on an act. He’d simply led her by hand to his chambers, lied her stomach-down on his bed, and dug out his hidden stash of herbs. He’d stuffed linen in her mouth, applied the herbs, and pinned her failing limbs to the bed until she passed out. He'd bandaged her up as best he could, re-hidden the herbs, and rushed out to stutter and stammer to Lord Tyrion about he had no idea how…

Joffrey wasn’t his, though.

Olenna Tyrell had more of a right to protect her family than he did to avenge a girl whose name he didn’t even know.

After all, she lived and physically healed, and there was no guarantee the king’s wife would be so lucky.

Someday, if Pod gets the chance, Lord Tyrion will die for what he did to Lady Shae. For all Pod used to be so genuinely grateful to him, a foreign woman who managed to claw her way to a high position only to be emotionally wounded, threatened with torture and death, and finally strangled by the man she once gave herself to might never have anyone speak out for her, but she will have someone take action on her behalf.

For right now, however, Ser Brienne of Tarth is lying feverish and delusional on a forest floor, and he’s praying he got the right flower petals and stems mixed properly and poured down her throat in her in time to save her life and bring her back to full strength of mind and body. For all she snaps at him and doesn’t listen to his sound advice, she is honourable, and so is her quest. Sansa Stark would have had no one to do what Olenna Tyrell had done for Queen Margaery for her, and Arya Stark is but a girl child who’d been raised in a sheltered home.

“Jaime,” she mutters. Jerking her body oddly, she nods. “I understand.”

Pod sits and watches her. It’s not his business to try to find out what she’s seeing and hearing.

“Podrick.”

“I’m here, my lady.” He takes her hand.

She looks at him with glazed eyes. “You know more than you let on.”

“Yes, my lady,” he agrees. “I’ve tried to tell you, but you never listened.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“I’m your squire, my lady. I’m never going to leave.”

“I might, soon,” she warns.

“Please, don’t,” he replies. “If the dead can see the living, Lady Tully Stark and Lord Ned are watching Sansa Stark, a kind girl, face even more cruelty. They’re watching little Arya suffer what no child should and lose all innocence. Lord Ned is watching his son, forced to stay at the wall instead of able to try to find them. All they have is you.”

“Are you real? Pod doesn’t talk this much.”

He places his hand over her eyes. “Podrick Payne needs you, too, my lady. He’s a bumbling, stumbling boy who can’t fight to save his own life.”

When he removes the hand, she blinks at him.  

“Will you come back, now, my lady?”

“Soon,” she promises.

He watches her fall back into sleep.

…

Swatting Pod’s hands away, Brienne insists, “I can walk without aide, Pod.”

“Yes, my lady,” he answers but continues to stand closer than he has in the past.

Sighing, she takes careful steps. “Thank you for all you did,” she tells him.

“Of course, my lady,” he replies.

Something niggles in the back of her mind, but for the life of her, she can’t figure out what.

Finally, she settles for, “In King’s Landing, I heard rumours of you and women from Littlefinger’s brothel, Podrick. Are they true about them finding you so very pleasurable?”

He blushes and averts his eyes. “I’m still a virgin, my lady,” he quietly tells her. “I’ve always been good with plants, and there are other ways besides moon tea to prevent babies. Ways that don’t require a man to do anything. I didn’t know they didn’t know, but once I did, I thought they might like to. We just talked, my lady. They said that, it was only right Lord Tyrion have his money back, because, a lot of women would pay even more for that sort of information. The rest- I suppose they spread those rumours as a way of thanking me.”

“Someday, Pod, you are going to be a wonderful knight,” she informs him.

Brightness overtakes his face, and he almost stumbles. “Thank you, my lady!”

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: To be clear, I view Pod as one of the most adorable, truly innocent characters the show has. I just happened to see a prompt for reimaging a good character as having a hidden dark side and thought it would be fun to try to apply it to Pod.
> 
> On another note, when it comes to the passage involving the woman Joffrey had Ros beat, I'm not sure how exactly that might read to others or how to make it clearer what I was going for within the text itself. Here's what I intended: Pod didn't take any sort of sexual advantage of her. The linen was just to keep her from screaming and drawing attention to them, and pinning her down was to minimise the damage she did to herself/him and, again, to keep the noise level down. After she passed out, he tended to her wounds and immediately went to get further help.


End file.
